


This Is the Rat That Ate the Malt

by starvingsnout



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-1d
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 13:13:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starvingsnout/pseuds/starvingsnout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry fucked up once, now he needs a second chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is the Rat That Ate the Malt

**Author's Note:**

> Bah, I tried to quite the fandom so hard but didn't make it in the end. Instead I scribbled random angst whenever I couldn't sleep. Hope you like it :(

Harry jolts to consciousness with the sensation of hitting pavement after falling off a balcony. Even after his body has determined the material underneath far too spongy for asphalt in anywhere but Candy-Land where streets are made of liquorice, his head is still throbbing all the way from the frontal lobe to the back of his neck like one giant vein about to burst and splatter brain tissue all over the bedsheets. It's nothing like he's ever experienced before and if the pillow under his head didn't smell like the familiar lemon-scented laundry detergent he uses on all his clothes, he would think he was indeed coming to in a hospital trauma ward. What did he do last night? Is it even morning? What day is it?

With a groan so deep it seems to inhabit a tangible presence, he wedges a hand between his abdomen and the mattress and uses it as leverage to heave himself over on his back. The nerve endings along his skull seem to set ablaze all at once and he lets out another groan, this one more of a long, pathetic whimper of pain and self-pity, uncaring to the possibility of there being someone there to witness it.

As it turns out, there is someone to witness it. A quietly spoken "good morning" greets Harry somewhere at the end of his bed - it's hard to locate it more specifically amidst the cacophony of pain in his head - followed by a "how're you feeling?"

"Like I've died and woken up in Hell," Harry says and cracks his hurting eyes open just long enough to confirm what he already knew, that Zayn Malik is sat on his bed, as obnoxiously attractive as ever. "Why're you here? What happened?"

"You tell me," Zayn speaks, as quietly as before. "You rang me last night to tell me you didn't remember where you lived. I picked you up at Piccadilly Circus - you were hid in a bush, by the way - and brought you home. Good thing you hadn't changed the security code." He falls silent and Harry successfully resists the temptation of opening his eyes long enough for him to speak up again, even softer than before. "I like what you've done with the house. It's starting to look like home here. Like you."

Harry forces himself to speak, pummels through the words even though his frontal lobe feels like is being hammered to pieces. "So you finally think I've found myself, then?"

Zayn doesn't answer and soon Harry feels the bed shake at his slight body climbing off it. A nameless surge of emotion rises in his gut at the thought of Zayn leaving already. "Zayn, are you-"

"I brought tea. It's in the Thermos on the side table. There's a bit of brandy mixed in. It's my mum's go-to morning pick-me-up. Not sure how it works with hangovers, but from the looks of it it can't make things much worse." Soft noises of feet padding on linoleum. "I don't have to be anywhere till afternoon, so... if you feel like catching up, I'll wait downstairs."

"Please do," Harry croaks and listens, unmoving, to the footsteps leaving the room and descending the creaking boards of the spiral staircase between the floors. This is not how he wanted this to happen. He's been weighing up the pros and cons of ringing up Zayn (and the others, but mostly Zayn) for months now, coming up with reasonable, innocent excuses, and then he just has to make a drunken blunder of it all. Instead of calm, poised and casual, he's dirty, probably stinks like a sewer, and in pain. He wants to burrow deep into a mountain of blankets and stay there until he feels like a member of the human race again, but he can't. Not now that Zayn has willingly stepped inside his house for the first time in many many months and spent a night in it just waiting for Harry to wake up. Who knows why. Maybe it's a whim, might be it's for closure, doesn't matter. Harry's not letting him go easily.

\---

It takes Harry twenty-three minutes to scrub himself into a decent state. But since decent isn't good enough right now he spends an extra five minutes blow-drying his hair because he knows Zayn pays attention to people's heads. Then he puts on pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt, downs three paracetamols and washes them down with Zayn's brandy tea. Inside, he feels only marginally better than he did waking up, but the outside isn't looking bad at all. It'll do.

\---

"So, what are you currently working on?" Harry asks, reaching for that familiarity and ease of talking they used to have down pat. He's sat in an armchair by the coffee table in the middle of the sitting room, cradling his Thermos.

"Lithographs," Zayn answers, studying the watercolour work on the big white wall next to the window, the one Harry yelled for at an auction because no one else did. Harry prays he won't ask anything about it. 

"Lithographs, huh."

"Prints, of sorts," Zayn elaborates, correctly guessing Harry's ignorance about the nature of lithographs. "Chemical printing of images with either stone or metal blocks - I prefer metal - on paper."

"And music-wise?"

"Things are going along at their own pace. We're thinking of a November release date. You?"

"Well, I just finished a promo tour in the US-"

"I know."

"Right. I'm basically taking a bit time off at the moment."

Zayn drags his eyes along Harry's form and a dry smile curves the end of his mouth. "Right. Good for you."

Blood rushes to Harry's cheeks and for a moment he's almost angry, mostly at himself but also at Zayn because it's not fair. He's barely been out for fun in months, his friends have been complaining about him becoming a recluse all summer, but Zayn just had to choose the one night he let loose to pop in for a visit. ...Except that it was Harry who made the call. "Shit," he says out loud. Zayn raises his eyebrows. "I mean, I feel like shit. Sorry about last night. I must have been... difficult."

"No, it's fine. You're not the worst of drunks. And I guess it was nice seeing you."

Was? "You're not leaving already?"

"Had a call while you in the shower. I have somewhere to be after all. Sorry." 

Harry swallows down the constricting feeling in his throat. His face and neck are puffed up as it is, he can't start crying now. "Well, if it can't be helped. How is- how is your schedule for the rest of the week?"

Zayn shrugs. "You know. Busy."

Harry does know. It's too busy for Harry.

Quietly, Zayn takes his coat from where it's laid on the back of a couch and goes to crack the front door open. He stays there at the doorway, half looking in, half peering out for his ride on the street, cool autumn air ruffling his hair. Harry wants to find the magic words, the spell that will make him step back in and close the door on the outside world. On the mistakes and the fights and the pettiness neither, but mostly Harry, was willing to let go of in time.

"Zayn. Come away with me," he says, aiming for cheeky nonchalance but his tongue is sticky and won't round the vowels properly. He's forced to gasp airily in the middle and sounds like a character in a 1940's Hollywood melodrama. "To Tuscany," he tries again, earnest now. "Come away with me to Tuscany."

"Tuscany," Zayn repeats, incredulous but intrigued, and it sounds perfect on his tongue. It sounds like a chance. "What's in Tuscany?"

Harry wets his lips and moves closer, steering clear of the ridiculous mahogany fainting couch he bought on a whim. When he was only just starting his career as a solo act the record company hired him a speech coach to work on his media skills and one of the few things that stuck with him out of the mostly pointless lessons was that putting up physical barriers between people also creates mental barriers. For Harry, whose feet have minds of their own, the physicality is bad enough on its own. "A villa with my name on it, for one. And art, I hear. Lots of it. All that Renaissance stuff." 

"You bought a villa in Tuscany?"

Harry shrugs and smiles, carefully now that the bait is being tested. "On impulse. I haven't been there to see it yet. Want to go? It has a name, Villa Rosignano, and it's on top a hill by the ocean. There's a huge garden, fenced in and hidden inside stone walls, with fruit trees and olive groves, and there's a medieval town within walking distance. You can see Corsica and Elba from the terrace. And there's-"

"Stop it, you sound like a brochure," Zayn interrupts but he isn't looking out for his ride anymore.

Sensing victory at his fingertips, Harry saunters up the little steps leading to the door and stops in front of Zayn, smiling slyly. His charm has never had quite the effect on Zayn that it does on most other people, but he's putting all his cards on the table now. "But I haven't told you about the biggest attractions yet." He leans in close, praying that the vigorous gurgling was enough to dispel the smell of stale alcohol from his breath. "Do you know what Tuscany is like in August? It's hot. And bright yellow, brown, blue. Dark green. Like those Cézanne paintings you like."

Zayn snorts. "Cézanne painted the French countryside, though." Then he groans. "Stop. God, are you serious, Harry? I have an album coming out, I can't just leave the country."

"So postpone it. What difference does, say, a month make? A month," he draws in a deep breath, "with me, in a Tuscan villa. We could just lie in the sun, maybe go on the beach every once in a while, on picnics." Zayn doesn't seem impressed so he continues with the words he's been preparing to say all summer: "I, um, know what went wrong now, you know? I'm sorry I was so all over the place. Literally. I should have put you first." Zayn isn't looking at him and Harry lets his eyes wander from the sharp lines of his profile down to the pronounced shoulders and flat chest, covered by a grey woollen jumper. It looks expensive. It's not the kind of garment Zayn would go for himself and Harry wonders with a surge of panic if there's someone new in Zayn's life. It's been almost half a year since Zayn walked out for good, plenty of time to grow close to someone else. Harry himself hasn't even looked, not beyond casual encounters. He wets his lips. "I still love you, as much as ever."

"Yeah, so you said last night. Among other things."

Harry stares at the faint smirk on Zayn's lips. Last night is still a black hole. Shit, what did he say? What did he do? "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Thought you were talking from your arse, to be honest." Zayn rubs his lips together, his throat working like he's preparing them for the thick words about to come through. "You really hurt me, Harry. It's funny 'coz I thought for sure I'd be the one to end up hurting you. In a weird way I thought I deserved it. It was like a pre-emptive strike on your part."

Harry is out of words and out of thoughts. He's out of feelings as well because this is the last thing he expected Zayn to say.

The horn of a car sounds from the street, breaking the tense silence. "My car's here," Zayn says, stating the obvious. "I should go." He smiles one of his laboured fake smiles and turns, steps out the door. 

Harry follows him, wringing his hands together. Desperate, crazy ideas are flying around in his head. Like, maybe he could tackle Zayn on the stone path of his front garden before he makes it through the gate and there'd be blood and they'd have to go to A&E, together. Accidents bring people together, don't they?

Turns out Harry doesn't have to resort to bloodshed because right at the gate Zayn abruptly turns on his heel. "I think Saturday would be good for me. I need a couple of days to sort things out. I may not get a month out, though. A week, maybe." He scrutinizes Harry's form, frozen in surprise where's he's standing. "I've missed you too, you daft sod. Now get in, your feet must be freezing."

Harry looks reflexively down at this socked feet and realizes that yes, his feet are going numb against the cold hard stone he's standing on. Crinkling his toes, he looks back up to find Zayn turning away with a smile, genuine one, on his lips. His own mouth stretching into a cheek-splitting grin, he hurries forward to catch Zayn by the shoulders and wrestles him into a fervent kiss, uncaring that their teeth clash.

After a moment of surprise Zayn responds, much more gently, and then pries Harry off, shaking his head. "See you soon."

Harry watches him vanish into the back of the car, skinny shoulders hunched. "Keep your phone on!" he shouts just as the door slams shut and laughs helplessly as the car slowly takes off. He's almost grateful for the cold because there's a bonfire ablaze in his chest. He can taste Italian summer on his tongue already.


End file.
